I saw Coyote vs. Acme a few days ago. This isn’t (despite my title) exactly a review of it, although I can provide one. It’s more, there was a part of the big reveal that the movie didn’t go into as deeply as it could have, and I’d like to explore that a bit.

There will be spoilers! Govern yourselves accordingly.

First, a quick review: CvA is the first use of the Warner Brothers’ cartoon characters that I’ve seen since the original shorts that is actually funny. It’s a funny movie! I was so glad that it was funny; that’s the most important thing for it to be. But it’s also very smart, and, like many movies that I’ve admired over the past few years (including The Odyssey, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Movie), it focuses on some part of our society that is now or always was terrible, and savagely attacks it in such a way that we can only admire its effectiveness. It’s also very touching in a few scenes; I won’t spoil them. I will give one piece of advice for those who haven’t seen it: no matter what else is happening, don’t take your eyes off the Coyote! There’s a good chance he’s going to do something funny. It’s a great movie in many ways; comes with my highest recommendation.

Now here’s the part I want to talk about. I did do a search to see if anyone else has touched on this, and didn’t find anything, although it’s very possible I just wasn’t looking in the right places. And if anyone who has more expertise on the topic wants to improve on what I’ve said, then that’s great, I want that. And what I want to address here is the way the movie almost, but doesn’t quite, confront the bloody core of racism in the U.S.A.

To do that I’ll have to explain the nuts and bolts of the plot. We know from the opening scene of the movie, a flashback, that the Acme corporation is up to something nasty. It’s performing horrible experiments on cartoon characters, but there’s somehow more to it than that. Then we see our man Wile E. Coyote using various Acme products to try and fail to catch the Road Runner; the Coyote always gets horribly maimed in these efforts. Sometimes it’s partly his fault and sometimes it’s the fault of his Acme-made equipment. He decides that he’s going to sue Acme for all of his pain and suffering, and goes to Albuquerque to get a lawyer. The lawyer and the Coyote investigate, and eventually discover–and Acme CEO Foghorn Leghorn confirms in testimony in front of Congress–that Acme tests its products by selling malfunctioning prototypes to cartoon characters, so that they can then sell improved versions to human beings. Foghorn Leghorn testifies that this is all worth it because the human beings benefit so much from the improved products that it doesn’t matter how many cartoon characters suffer explosions and other damage during testing. After all, they’ll be okay by the next scene anyway. And Congress has to admit that Acme hasn’t broken any laws in doing this, because, as we learned in an earlier scene, Acme writes the laws in the first place.

You with me so far?

So that’s what’s in the movie. As it is, it’s a pretty anti-corporate movie, which I appreciate, and I’m glad it was allowed to see the light of day. Would have been perfectly on-brand for the studio to just sit on it forever, and honestly I don’t know why they didn’t.

Anyway, CvA could have gone a lot further than it did in its criticism. I guess I understand why it didn’t; it’s very difficult for the people of the United States to really confront racism in public, and a kids’ movie–well, it’s arguably a kids’ movie–is not the logical place to start.

Let me throw a series of points up here. The first one is: cartoon characters are Black people. There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about how the design and, oh, entertainment style of the early cartoon characters owes much to minstrel shows. (Consider these linked articles for more on this point: First Second Third) And that doesn’t even take into account the degree to which cartoon characters are identifiably Black to Black people today. (More links: Fourth Fifth).

Second point: various entities in the U.S. do have a history of using Black people as guinea pigs in tests. (Sixth)

Third point: Foghorn Leghorn is the whitest possible Warner Brothers character.

Fourth point: one feature of anti-Black racism is the belief that Black people don’t suffer pain the way white people do. (Seventh)

Fifth point: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a great influence on this movie, itself uses cartoons as symbolic representations of Black people in its treatment of gentrification in 1940s Los Angeles.

For these reasons, I believe that Coyote vs. Acme is symbolically about the treatment of Black people in the U.S.A. and how difficult it has been to get any legal remedy for it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the creators of the movie would know the background I just cited. And I think it’s part of why Warner Brothers wasn’t enthusiastic about releasing it, and it’s part of why I’m glad someone finally did.

(One of my friends suggested that Coyotyssey is the Barbenheimer of 2026.)